Left-wingers tend to look for solutions in the equitable sharing of resources through organisations representing the people. They see as their enemy power in the hands of the rich and privileged. As words of abuse they tend to use the terms: "fascist" "nazi" "capitalist" "Stalinist"

Right-wingers look for solutions in freedom to do what ever they like, including acquiring lots of money. They see history as determined by "great" individuals often having inherited genius within privileged families. They also tend to talk favourably about their "race" and "nation" which they tend to believe is superior to others by nature. The flip side of this is fear of foreigners. As words of abuse they tend to use the terms: "communist" "liberal" "socialist" "anarchist".

In fact both left and right wing forms of governance can tend towards extreme oppressive autocracy and become very like each other, as Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany were.

The third element, which can counteract autocracy, is democratic people's control. The powerful institutions need to be answerable to the people or their elected representatives. That not only includes governments but also the most powerful organisations on earth: the trans-national corporations (TNCs) Their leadership is not elected by any democratic means, they are answerable only remotely to shareholders, whose sole common purpose is the maximisation of their dividends.

The United Nations set up a unit to provide ethical guidelines on the conduct of TNCs, but the TNCs didn't like what it was doing so they pressured key governments to get the UN to close down this unit. Thus society is ruled, not by peoples highest ideals, but by their lowest common denominator: the need for money and often the greed for wealth and power.

However, we would be wise not to make unsubstantiated allegations. Much as I dislike what I have seen of Common Purpose I have seen no evidence of it being related to EU institutions in any way. I would like to know where Brian Gerrish got this information. Failure to obtain such evidence means that the allegations will not be taken seriously.

In fact both left and right wing forms of governance can tend towards extreme oppressive autocracy and become very like each other, as Stalin's Russia and Hitler's Germany were.

Xmasdale, I absolutely agree with what you say in your post. All governments are capable of being oppressive oligarchies. In fact, the marked increase in this tendency, I believe, has proved the old anarchist observation to be true: the Government is the Enemy of the People.

Not that governments should be but that they have become so. An entirely new way of looking at the problem outside the box of Left and

Right is now an urgent necessity and so is a reanalysis of modern capitalism vis a vis the classical Marxist analysis of the Mode of Production. More than that, the question of how power structures operate in all groups, whether Left or Right, needs to be properly understood.

I think it was Adler, was it not, who suggested that behind all human motivation lay the drive for power?

As regards Common Purpose, I have to say this: firstly, it is incumbent on Gerrish to prove what sounds like wild allegations aimed against the European Union and secondly, who else other than Gerrish is making any allegations against Common Purpose?

I know next to nothing about Common Purpose and at present keep an open mind on all the allegations that are being made. But at this point in time I haven't heard enough even to think that CP is playing a dangerous game by in some way indoctrinating people.

Further to my comments above I would sum up the BBC-approach to the dissemination of state propaganda as follows: by seeking to control the parameters of acceptability within which a controversial topic may be discussed an editor becomes guilty of ideological censorship.

One way of controlling those parameters is by the use of emotional blackmail, eg by suggesting anyone who dares question the official, broadcast conspiracy around 911 is a "conspiracy theorist" or "looney" and expelled from the debate. No justification for expulsion is given outside of the spell that has been cast upon them.

Paul Gapper works as a Detective Inspector within the Diversity and Citizen Focus Directorate of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS).

In 2004 Paul obtained a BSc (Hons) in Policing and Police Studies with Portsmouth University. Elements of the degree included psychology, sociology and political science. He is currently studying for an MSc at Roehampton University in the Management of Diversity and Equality, which will provide invaluable additional tools that can be used in his current position.

Paul is a member of the Investors in Diversity National Quality Board - that's part of National Centre for Diversity - which is an independent organisation, which has a wide range of support from high calibre individuals from all sectors right across Britain. We have established excellent links and or strategic alliances with a number of world class Businesses, Agencies, Umbrella Associations and Organisations. Paul also works as an independent training consultant.

This has a fascinating National Advisory Board a member of which is multi lingual Julia Middleton, Chief Executive of Common Purpose - you can watch her talking here about leadership and her book "Beyond Authority" published in March 2007 - a mixture of Norman Vincent Peale and Ron Hubbard.

In the autumn of 1988, Julia formed Common Purpose which now operates in every area of the UK. The organisation aims to improve the way society works by increasing the number of informed individuals who are actively involved in shaping the future of the area in which they live and work. By bringing leaders from diverse backgrounds together, Common Purpose creates new networks for current and future senior decision-makers.

Common Purpose is developed world-wide through Common Purpose International and currently runs programmes in Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, South Africa and Hungary and is currently developing programmes in India.

An enthusiastic supporter of Common purpose is Cressida Dick, colleague of Paul Gapper at the Met and very much in the news for having organised the murder of Jean Paul de Menezes (and endangering the public ... apparently).

Great people for Advisory Boards these common purpose folks - indeed Cressida Jack addressed the 4th meeting of the Leicester Police Independent Advisory Board at 246 people from 100 agencies crammed the Hanover Hotel, in Hinckley, Leicestershire, on May 24/5th 2004.

What is bad or wicked about Common Purpose? So far as I can establish it's because it operates in a secretive manner. That's never good & I can accept that criticism.

That's enough to make it potentially diabolical. Mr Gerrish reports that members are required to make promises (I'm not sure if 'oaths are involved or not) that their primary loyalty be to 'Common Purpose'.....over whatever organisation employs them.

Surely,even without concrete evidence of suffering caused (although, again, Mr Gerrish tells stories of such suffering), it can be recognised by anyone who yearns for a proper democracy, that this organisation is, in principle, a bad and wicked lot?

I certainly don't want to end up being governed by over-ambitious creeps who have been selected (probably for their ambition, cheerful compliance and moral vacuity) while in their early teens.

I believe that CP and the EU are part of the hidden agenda and that those top ranking Freemasons are pulling the strings.

Thanx to Penny who has e mailed me this information:-

Quote:

Second Family UK are a support group for victims of Freemasonry & Common Purpose. www.secondfamily-uk.com <http://www.secondfamily-uk.com/> We are not a revenge or hatred group, only to peacefully campaign for change. Everyone has the right to reply, please be focused and sensible.
We are all victims of Freemasonry/Common Purpose

Because people are ignorant to taboo subjects like the Freemasons and Common Purpose (same legal gang) we have started our Independent Human Rights groups all over the UK. We have had to take a different angle on this because all human rights groups are controlled by the authorities. Scotland has no human rights groups at all and this is wrong. When are the people going to waken up ? SF will continue to be and we will work alongside our Independent Human Rights. This will help us gather more info and support for us all. Here at SF, we know much, much more than we reveal at this stage. SF's Crescendo (gradually getting louder).

FM/CP expose. If you say Common Purpose really quickly, you will find that it sounds and spells like "COMPASS". The Masons are mad about their Square and Compass. Both tools used by early Masons. Very symbolic and Masonic icons used in lots of FM connotations and brainwash. Fact; All Masons are possessed by a criminal network/organisation.

Correction to newsletter SF22. Gordon Cameron's excellent book/expose (only 50p to download) on the Freemasons can be found at www.Lulu.com/GordonKameron <http://www.Lulu.com/GordonKameron> Get it now before the crooked Masons make it disappear.

There is a large conspiracy website called 'Above Top Secret.' SF has sent them 7 emails to ask why they keep removing our articles ?
No reply from them. We know of several FM trolls who regularly post there. We hope it is not just another FM disinformation site. Please post something anti-Masonic and let us know how you go on. Heres another Masonic pretend clean up dodgy website at www.letsfixbritain.com <http://www.letsfixbritain.com> We emailed him and he replied by calling us cretins ! You should email him and ask his true intentions or ask him for help (pretend). All Masons/Common Purpose members will blatantly lie (Rule No1) that they are not FM/CP members.

Did you get your latest copy of The UK column ? If you want to know about real corrupt politics, this is a must read for all truth-seekers. Go to www.ukcolumn.org <http://www.ukcolumn.org> or call them on 01752 312 743 or for urgent editorial on 07841 464 187 especially if you have had a problem with Common Purpose, like bullying, being ill since stress management course, trouble with social services, ganging up on you, thrown out of your church, your children taken away, bullied by police or just fearful of the moral decline in society.

More SF expose; Masons are mad about the colour Blue. This is the dominant colour (Royal Blue) in Freemasonry. Anonymous FMs said look in the front or rear of their gardens and you will find Blue ceramic plant-pots or Blue bird baths/feeders. Or Blue vehicle,

Blue clothes pegs (yes we've got it on video) Police (boys in Blue), Blue house numbers at their home or business. Blue background to their business signs or adverts. Blue painted gates and doors. The Masons normally have something Blue (at front/rear of house) that lets other pretend brothers know they are Masons. Blue items on car dash/rear shelf (no parking ticket). Checkout Blue Blanket.

Don't forget to checkout their vehicle registration, very relevant. Also look for a Rose etched or imprinted on their glass doors. An Owl or Lion or Horned symbols. An arch (Royal Arch Degree) on top of their doors. An arch or half round above their doors in the shape of the sun-rays, i.e. it represents their Masonic Sun-god. Connections to a sports club who's predominant colour is Blue. These findings do not imply that these are Masons, just connect this and the other Masonic icons, symbols and numbers. If you are not sure, contact us at SF. The other colours the Masons love are Yellow or Gold. Yellow represents the colour of their Sun God, Sun Rays, and Sun Light, etc. Gold is the most noble of metals (more FM tosh). The new chosen colour for English Masonry (instead of their black tie image) is light/dark Blue and Gold. Scotland's Masons still wear a Black Ties to their meetings. As above, do your own investigations and let SF know your findings. We will pass this info on to everyone, victim or not. You should do the same.Chas

Although we know that the higher levels of Freemasonry practice witchcraft, lower Masons are not knowingly part of this. They are just another tool to be used. The lower levels are definitely all pretend, i.e. pretend friendships (esp. with us profane), pretend brothers, sisters, grannies, etc. There is no doubt about it that Masons are definitely in it for the money. All at the expense of anything good. Freemasons are "SCABS" in the true sense of the word. They do not care about the damage and consequences of their actions. They ONLY breathe Freemasonry, nothing else. These freaks are no longer human. LP

Masonic Codes: they use a combination of numbers, letters and symbols to communicate and persecute. Here are the most important letters to be found within the Masonic Codes, A, B, D, F, G, L, M, V, W & Y (also GG or MM together) lots more to follow.

Masons like Jesters, Harlequins, Punch n' Judy. They are crazy about grid reference numbers and longitude and latitude references (lots of historical facts and events of these). Masons love to drive any model of Mitsubishi Motors, it has a Masonic symbol and it also tells other Masons that "MM" means Master Mason. They use the same "MM" Masonic Code in their names or their business names or vehicle registrations or children's names (esp. last 35 years approx) for instance Emma, Tommy, Sammy, Jimmy, Gemma, Mickey Mouse, Mike Martin etc, The letters M & A also appears to be a favourite in the Masons pet names. anon

More Masonic Codes; If you know any Masonic families, the whole family will have an "A" in their christian names. The only exception if they already have an "A" in their surname. The A represents the "All Seeing Eye" and also the same shape as their Compass (The Masonic logo of the Square and Compass). If you don't believe us, how many FM businesses do you know with an important A in it ? Abbey, AA, AOL, Marsh, Carlyle group (search online at U Tube, Guba, Google Video, etc) Have a look at businesses with Blue/Compass or Square. This should wet your whistle. Know your enemy. John T

Masonic Codes; Trees, yes, the names/types of trees are very symbolic to the Masons. Use this in your investigations. We promise you will not be disappointed. Other terms/names/nicknames we are working on Adam, Peggy, Shadow, Hanged man, Take a look at the name Adam; A + D (4th letter of the alphabet, Masons love number 4 as in four sides to a square) then A, then M for Mason and Adam includes the two letters of A & M (no offence to all non-Masonic "Adams") anon

Birds are very prominent in the Masonic Codes. The Owl, Eagle, Peregrine Falcon, Robin, Blackbird (more to follow)

The Masons will also try to get an "L" into their children's names or their vehicle registration. The "L" is the shape of the Mason's Square. They love names that start with L (or contain at least one L) and better with two L's like William, Michelle, Danielle, etc

Look at their christian names for the letters "A and M" in any order or "A and L", Amanda, Alicia, Allistair, Mandy, Lana, etc. The same with vehicle registrations and business names. We've been told that the letter "B" is Masonic, if you split the "B" up, it looks like 1-3, i.e. number 13 very symbolic to FMs. "B" also represents Blue, Blazing Star, Baal, Brethren and Rabbie Burns. We are still working on other Masonic letters n' codes (please send more guys) anon

The letter "Y" is very symbolic, it represents the Mason's brainwash of Horns, i.e. Goat, Ram or the Horned God. You will see a "Y" on most Mason's vehicle registrations. This is how they recognise each other (as well as other FM numbers/letters). They used to be invisible, not any more. SF is surprised at the anonymous info coming in from ex-Masons who have read the truth online. The future depends on the good guys, help us at SF. To all activists and truthseekers, we love you, keep it up and make us grow. anon

If you want to dig deeper to help your investigation or story, then get online and search for Masonic Abbreviations or Masonic numbers, etc. When searching, try different terms like, Freemasons Codes, Freemasonry, Masons Tactics, Secret societies, Masonic secrets, etc. Search for Mackeys Encyclopedia and use the links as well. Always follow the links to gather more info.

When someone says "You're a star" be very wary. It's a reference to The Order Of The Eastern Star (for female Masons) or they will say "She's a star". This is Masonic code talk. OES is for men and women. Lots more to follow. (Sandra)

Here's another fascinating one. If anyone tells you someone they know is very good at working out codes, be very wary. (+ more )

Know anyone who's been to the USA? Places like Phoenix, Arizona (AKA Valley of the Sun). Also Los Angeles or Las Vegas ? it is something to do with the A's and the L's, i.e. the Square and Compass or vice versa. Lot's more we are working on. Keep your family and friends close to your chest and keep these Masonic enemies even closer. A lot of us victims at SF are friendly with some of these Masonic freaks. We know they are our pretend friends and that they are only close to us to persecute us. We know they are Masons but we let them think they are clever. It's a great way to document them. Can you believe these low level Masons think they are working for MMI5 ? Yes, they think they are on a high level mission to save the country or whatever other claptrap they have been told. Incidentally, MMI5 means "Mickey Mouse Intelligence Five". It's a cracker. You have no idea how thick some people really are, but that's how the elite make money. These dumb Masons actually pay to be a member, how dumb is that ? Billy (not goat)

For society's sake, let's blackball (reject) the Masons. This means expose these freaks for what they are, and ignore them. Don't talk to them as if they were an ordinary person (they're definitely not). This is what they do to their victims, they ostracize you. Let's tell all of their neighbours, friends, colleagues and anyone else about their involvement in this evil criminal network/organisation.
We at SF will back you up or point them towards our website or www.ljpr.info <http://www.ljpr.info>

Here's a cheap brilliant way to set up situations to help your story. Get yourself a cheap Digital Voice Recorder for £25 from Argos. Its called Mikomi and it has an external microphone so that you can clip it to your clothing, hidden around your neck. You can also speak to it just like a diary (now you can document everything esp. when harassed). It records for hours. Check it out. Tim

Fact; Masons are possessed, period. Next time you talk to a suspected Mason, just ask "Are you possessed by the Masons?", they do not like this, watch their body language. Here's another important fact about Mason's human rights. The Masons want to use the human rights laws to protect them from giving us a public register of Masons ? ARE THEY SERIOUS ?, what about the extensive damage they are doing 24/7/365 Do you seriously think this evil cares about human rights? Fact; Freemasonry infects everything it comes into contact with. Checkout www.freemasonrywatch.org <http://www.freemasonrywatch.org> for lots more expose on this criminal network. JP

Second Family UK have hit the nail on the head big time. We have sent four revealing articles to every MP and Newspaper (large & small) in the UK. They know about this serious legal crime and the Dodgy Masons doing nothing about it. How can they sit and take a wage ? How come nothing is being done ? The answer is very simple. The Secret Societies have hijacked our Government and Media and nobody cares ????? Not one person has disputed a single word that Second Family has said. This is comprehensive proof that SF have got it 100% right.

We have genuine anonymous information that they (big fish) have sown the seeds to bring these crooks down, but not fast enough for us. We still want a meeting with representatives from this criminal charity called Freemasonry. We want to do this with transparency in front of a live independent audience (for the world to see). What is the problem with this request ? We have a wealth of information to bring this monster down. You cannot keep the status quo, it's 100% corrupt and it's way out of control. To all crooked politicians and journalists "Curse the elite and Curse you for doing nothing" You have all knowingly done (for reward) your bit to destroy what could easily be heaven (still can be) for us all. Life is pure **** and much worse to come (FM/CP or not). Incidentally, these Masonic Freaks are doing everything to stop us, that's how possessed they really are.

Second Family UK are a support group for victims of Freemasonry & Common Purpose. www.secondfamily-uk.com <http://www.secondfamily-uk.com> We are not a revenge or hatred group, only to peacefully campaign for change. Everyone has the right to reply, please be focused and sensible.
Contact/write to SF at 93 Ashburn Road, Glasgow G62 7PQ or call 0141 560 4743 or mobiles 07834 329 287 or 07799 612 227 (leave details/message and we'll call you back asap) or email voacs@ mac or kim.stirling@ntlworld.com <mailto:kim.stirling@ntlworld.com> Make sure you get a reply as the Masons will try to stop the truth. Please continue to send info, ideas and suggestions. Join SF, it's absolutely free. This newsletter is brought to you by SF & Joe Stirling, a veteran victim of Freemasonry & Common Purpose. Small donations welcome to help us keep up this important cause. If you do nothing today, the Masons will continue unhindered with their NWO plans.[/i]

Are we really frightened by this sort of writing?.........no, I don't think so.

But hey, wait a minute, they might just be right, I have a twin cab here in Cyprus, it has a blue gear knob, blue livery down the sides and tail gate and a blue grill!
My name begins with the letter 'A' and so does the registration on my twin cab................I'm starting to get a little worried now!

For any Common Purpose researcher - this has to be one of the best articles.

The Tainted Word by William Clark - Variant magazine
They are like to children sitting in the marketplace, and speaking one to another, and saying: We have piped to you, and you have not danced: we have mourned, and you have not wept. (Luke chapter 7)

Tales from the script
Many things are done in an underhand and unaccountable way in the arts. Not just decision-making, but the political ideologies which are enforced upon it. At times people have to go to preposterous lengths to disguise this.
The Scottish Arts Council (SAC) organised - and presumably paid for - a quiet event for an audience of 'arts managers' in Glasgow on 14/4/99. Grimly called "Facing the Future," for some reason this took the form of one lecture by Ian Christie, then director of the think tank 'Demos'. After an obviously unwanted debate (chaired by Mrs. Jack McConnell, Labour Party etc.) in which the audience clearly did not accept what they were told, the final words from Seona Reid (then Director of the SAC) convey the impression that some form of transaction had taken place, that "SAC was working to ensure the arts were incorporated into the range of Government policies - but arts organisations and artists needed to play their part in making this a reality".
Reality fabrication had also been the purpose of Christie's talk, "A New Agenda for the Arts" which was also slyly pushed around the SAC by 'colleagues' who followed the lead and felt the need to be seen to be urging others towards Christie's big idea. This is the brainless fraud that there is no need to form an arts policy distinct from that dictated in London. Christie even offers the golden promise that if "autonomous Scotland" were to follow the government line we would be the "envy and fascination" of the rest of the country.
The problem is the Scottish electorate voted for less dictatorship from London, not more. People want something different for the future not more of the same old *. But there arts policy has remained despite the wheeling in and switching on of a couple of new appointees.
Tacking on the word 'Scottish' did not disguise the obvious difficulty with Christie's little talk: that it is propaganda, that he is working for the government and that he is bullshitting people. The tone is of an Oxford graduate on the lowest rung of the Civil service, perhaps in a propaganda department for some colonial enterprise. His statements such as "policy debate about 'the arts' is one of the most dispiriting areas of stand-offs and entrenched interests in our intellectual life", don't make much sense in Scotland - what policy debate?
Christie was employed to discern the future environment for the arts for the Scottish, Welsh and English Arts Councils in 1996. So this was money for old rope, ignominiously flogged yet again in the SAC Annual Report of 1999 which cites Christie's talk as the sole example of its organisation of arts policy debate. An example of nihilistic apathy.
Christie even points to "policy debate" as a key problem, but what he really seems to mean is any independent thought and free discussion not to the government's liking and eh...actual culture, art. What is dispiriting is that his Pol Pot equation aims to exclude first all the arts administrators including all partnerships with private business and secondly any artist who has expressed dissatisfaction:
"...the arts establishment is split on tediously familiar lines. On the one hand, the official arts world is preoccupied with the economics of cultural policy - subsidy, value for money, partnership with business and a goal of reaching new mass audiences ('art for all'). Ranged against it are members of an establishment of discontented artistes - including those who have recently announced that they were forming an 'alternative arts council' to seek more resources for their favoured forms of high culture. Arts Council chairman Gerry Robinson confronts Harold Pinter: it is yet another showdown between the men in grey suits and the men in black polo necks."
Leaving aside that this has nothing much to do with Scotland or reality; Christie inferiorises contemporary discussion on art and arts policy to undermine both arts funders and artists from any expectation of autonomy of purpose (which for some is actually the attraction). In fact Christie further engenders the bad faith that only authentic and open debate could possibly counter.
Although some may close their minds to it, the administrators know government policy is all a load of rubbish too. For Christie the work of both artists and administrators are the problem because "in these debates 'the arts' tend to appear as a distinct world, disconnected from other [government] policy areas." His idea is that all cultural policy must align itself to "sectors which will command funding." Such a polite way of putting it. But we are trying to get out of this cultural gulag not into it.
Arts administrators need to be primarliy aware of the debates within the arts so as to be able to respond. What the government wants has to be counter balanced by what artists want. Or are we to be forever puppets? Administrators should not be led into nor encouraged - as they were with this event - to try to influence and pre-determine debate by political funding exclusions. Their positions are predicated on an independence from government. Traditionally 'think tanks' have played a role in poisoning and tainting this independence. How they fit into power structures must be openly analysed: and bear in mind a conflict of interest is also a potential conflict of interest.
The carrot and stick (the arse and the lick) approach is a sadistic pleasure of control for the psychologically damaged. With the Lottery there is an inordinate surplus of funding available: some £4.4bn which remains unallocated. That this has been atrociously handled (and largely embezzled by government) is one reason why distrust legitimately exists between artists and administrators: the artists know the criteria which is used to exclude them is politically motivated and biased towards spurious government endeavours and incoherent and coercive marketing theories. This is destroying our culture not sustaining it.
Putting every egg in the basket Christie maintains that cultural policy needs to be first joined to government policies (the "modernisation of the fabric of the UK" no less) and then armed with the marketing spin of ever shifting concepts of 'Audience Development', which I imagine will be provided by think tanks and consultants ("policy entrepreneurs") thus creating the Catch-22 loop. This will simplify everything: the "nature of the artistic experience on offer" is inconsequential. Art has no place except as predetermined sanitised "forms of arts enterprise which combine civic spirit with entrepreneurial skills..." We are all welcome to "join up".
The 'evidence' he presents to justify the idea that everything must follow government policy is one source: Geoff Mulgan. A Cabinet Office news release of 1/9/00 announced the appointment of Mulgan as Director of the slightly Orwellian 'Performance and Innovation Unit' (PIU): "The PIU's aim is to improve the capacity of Government to address strategic, cross-cutting issues and to promote innovation in the development and delivery of policy and in the delivery of the Government's objectives. The Unit reports direct to the Prime Minister through Sir Richard Wilson." Previously, the report continued, "Mulgan has worked since 1997 as a Special Adviser to the Prime Minister on social policy issues...responsible for social exclusion, welfare to work, family, urban, voluntary sector and other issues... He was previously the founder and Director of Demos, the independent think tank."
Hey Ian, isn't that where you work? Even a fool would need a bit more than that to take Christie seriously but all he provides is an obscure concluding phrase that "we need a Zeldinist Manifesto."1 This is a reference to Theodore Zeldin a slightly bonkers Oxford academic who writes:
"I see humanity as a family that has hardly met. I see the meeting of people, bodies, thoughts, emotions or actions as the start of most change. Each link created by a meeting is like a filament, which, if they were all visible, would make the world look as though it is covered with gossamer. Every individual is connected to others, loosely or closely, by a unique combination of filaments, which stretch across the frontiers of space and time."2
That's straight out of Private Eye's 'Pseud's Corner (and I don't like his Open University hair style either), but the 'gossamer filaments' of Christie and Demos' connections are certainly in need of investigation. As with Mulgan's book 'Connexity,' the Amazing Zeldin has found a small niche market with a handful of corporate PR managers on the verge of a nervous breakdown. They use it to justify 'Sustainable Development,' (a propaganda exercise funded by Big Business and government) as a 'Third Way' distraction from the ecological ravages of their Global empires. Aan what do you know, Zeldin is along with Christie and Mulgan, also a core member of Demos.
Christie currently works for the Cabinet Office with Mulgan. For nine years a Fellow of the Policy Studies Institute and the Henley Centre: he's a think tanker's think tanker. He also has his own little organisation 'Green Alliance' (GA). A typical GA pamphlet, by Christie, argues the political case for sustainable development as a rationale for the EU. GA organised the second annual Rio Tinto Environmental and Social Forum, where RTZ company representatives outlined what Rio Tinto has achieved, described a range of initiatives underway and promised to continue constructive engagement in the future. Then presumably went back to dynamiting the rain forest.
GA ran a seminar for William Hague and his environment spokesman Damian Green, on what line they should be punting, then went round the country performing with John Prescott and Micheal Meacher who both spoke at their annual meeting. Not everyone can make money out of turning politics into a middle-man's melange, not everyone sees political commitment and belief as such an opportunity for prostitution.3
Think Tanks such as Demos also pander to the strategies, structures and operating processes of major corporations which are complicit factors in the reduction in the political and economic power of nations. A corollary to this is the ever decreasing ability of governments to meet the needs and expectations of their constituents. The ulterior motive of 'corporate community engagement' is to pirate money from government social management infrastructures which will in the long term eventually abrogates responsibility for social policy to large financial concerns.4 A great deal of this has been rationalised by think tanks as part of a 'Third way' approach. As we will see later the people who run them are becoming adept at obtaining government money through phoney cultural projects.

The Sadistic Statistic
"The Third Way is to my mind the best label for the new politics that the progressive centre-left is forging in Britain and beyond."
Tony Blair5
And what would a new product be without a label. 'Forging' is an unfortunate choice of words though. Christie also writes for Prospect - a small magazine desperately pushing the 'Third Way' which aspires to the role played by Encounter in the late 50s. In 'Return to Sociology,' adopting a manner not unlike Senator Joe McCarthy, Christie blames the "1968 generation" for unspecified crimes against sociology.6
'The influence of continental theory grew - and generated a huge amount of posturing, barely exaggerated in Bradbury's lethal portrait of his "history man."' In Bradbury's novel the History Man is not Howard Kirk (the character played by Anthony Sher in the 82 TV adaptation) but an unseen shadowy figure; but you know what he means. This is after all just more propaganda. The point is to create the illusion that Marxism achieved a monopoly in the sociology curriculum.
Here again he relies on reductive, crude characterisations of the left (while ignoring the right - yes what is right-wing sociology?). The article is a perverse attempt to erase Marxist and left-wing influences (like the Stalinists air-brushing their former comrades out of the picture). He cuts the history of sociology at 1961 and starts it again in 1997 with Demos. The unwanted material is then discarded as he settles down to relentlessly promote his own work and elevate the role of Demos and allied think tanks and consultancies because of their closeness to government. He then depicts them as the logical successor of British Empiricists Lord Young and Peter Willmott, the nice 'establishment' sociologists. The guys who get funding.
Again there are relentless puffs for Geoff Mulgan's book (it would have been nice of Christie to mention that Mulgan helps 'advise' Prospect). Eventually we are guided towards Anthony Giddens the chief salesman (i.e. Tony Blair hired him) of the Third Way. Giddens resembles an old sold-out version of Howard Kirk: he was a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Leicester from 1961-70. He has never left the Academy and - having climbed the greasy pole at Cambridge from Lecturer, Reader to Professor of Sociology - is now the director of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Once a Marxist sociologist he now advocates that socialism is dead. It's the old "The God That Failed" routine where his mistakes, his failings and sell-outs are attributed and projected onto a failed 'Left'.
Giddens' ideas such as the 'responsible risk taker' grew out of conversations with Mulgan. Together they concocted ill-thought-out concepts for social experimentation on the poor as if they were a bunch of lab rats. What they derived was 'embedded' in the Government's Social Exclusion Unit. Now with the Performance and Innovation Unit there is the development of a desperate propaganda aspect to Mulgan's activities, and as ever it is blowing back in his face.
In 1998 at the direction of the Government, an 'on-line think tank' called Nexus initiated (within 'on-side' academic circles) a series of debates on the Third way, involving Anthony Giddens; David Marquand, Principal of Mansfield College, Oxford (also Demos); Julian Le Grand, Professor of Social Policy at the LSE; and the Directors of the Institute for Public Policy Research and the Fabian Society. The whole sad little gang: but no academic backing was given to the practical meaning or legitimacy of the Third Way.
Nexus was held up as providing a "tested model of how intellectuals, academics, social entrepreneurs and policy experts would assist the development of the public policy of centre-left governments". It soon deteriorated to extinction. One more confirmation of the vacuum in Third Way thinking, and the inability of its proponents to apply its ideas to concrete social realities.7
But not everyone can make money out of the discussion of poverty. As Christie accidentally admits: "The reform of local government and the welfare state is creating a large demand for information about the preferences of the consumers of public services."8 One of the most blatant hypocritical examples of this 'internal market' being the ERSC/government funded Research Centre for Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE). In its second year in '99 they managed to spend £764,000 on themselves, only producing a couple of books and reports which are overwhelmingly influenced by the work of the Director, John Hills who writes with Geoff Mulgan. The whole point of CASE seems to be to report to Mulgan and tell him what he already knows.9

An accurate picture would be against the national interest old bean
Central to the gang's ideas is the portrayal of both 'Old Left' and 'New Right' as coherent, monotheist political ideologies, this is a convenient myth - but a misleading form of product differentiation. Whether elaborated by Blair, Giddens, Mulgan or Christie, the Third Way is always in search of meaning, presenting concepts awaiting precise definition. But does political expediency actually need or desire intellectual and moral justification? If the Third Way remains a fuzzy undefined concept, there can be no political accountability.
Which is handy because there is no political accountability. The establishment position can't really account for its complicity in the suppression and repression which was targeted at the left in those years Christie wants to so conveniently avoid - none of it is in the history books or the official accounts, most of the relevant information is a secret we are told. The prevailing illusion is that this only happened during the 'Cold War' and that everything now is open. This has gone on so long that a great deal of that suppression and covert compliance with government (and the market ideology) has become internalised and institutionalised within what is passed off as intellectual culture. This is a major problem. A fundamental cultural insecurity.
In the Thatcher years and before, many independent journalists took the influence of think tanks to be a malignant and covert right-wing influence in politics. They realised certain organisations were providing doubtful research to reinforce government/intelligence service's propaganda. Overall this was rarely acknowledged in academia and the papers and TV who were themselves manipulated. In some cases contrary evidence was vociferously kept out of debate by those within institutions who were connected and/or sympathetic in recruiting and training within academia. Paul Wilkinson up in St. Andrews University immediately comes to mind; and he is still providing a service to the budgets of MI5 with his sinister input into loathsome legislation such as the recent 'Terrorism Bill'.
These previous Marxists: Giddens, Mulgan, Demos, despise political activism because they - the 'policy entrepreneurs' as they call themselves - want to dictate policy: why else would they do what they do if they didn't. The 'Third Way' mirrors their own personal sell-outs and biddable political conscience. Put it this way 'Policy entrepreneurs' could easily become Cockney rhyming slang for 'agent-provocateurs'. As we shall see below, they have found a place as agents of influence, joining up with what Anthony Verrier called the 'permanent government.'

Happy ever after in the market place
'Those of us who have observed the resistible rise of the Blairites inside the Labour Party are not in the least surprised by the [the decision to exempt Formula One from the tobacco sponsorship ban]. We expected nothing else from people who routinely broke the rules of their own party, lied about their own actions, smeared fellow Party members, abused Party funds to pursue factional advantage, rigged votes, repeatedly revised policy without consulting any of the Party's democratic organs, and ensured a steady flow of jobs and patronage to those loyal and useful to the leadership. Their attitude to the rules that apply to ordinary people is like Leona Helmsley's towards taxes: they're "for little people".'
http://archive.briefing.org.uk/1997/december/news2.html
Yes times have been good for Demos, it has increased its staff and moved to new offices in Waterloo (let's hope that's ironic) sharing with the MI6 connected Foreign Policy Centre, among others10. Tom Bentley (a former advisor to David Blunkett on education) is now the Director with Beth Egan (advisor to Gordon Brown) as Deputy Director. They still maintain that they are independent from government.
Their web site promotes links to several right-wing think tanks and war mongering arms of the cold war including: The Royal Institute of International Affairs, The RAND Corporation, The International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Hudson Institute (founded by Herman Khan the model for Kubrick's Dr Strangelove), The Heritage Foundation, The Centre for Policy Studies, The Institute of Economic Affairs, The Aspen Institute, The Adam Smith Institute and so on...
Demos trustees bring together mind benders Sir Douglas Hague (former adviser to Margaret Thatcher), Jan Hall (Chief Executive of the advertising agency Gold Greenlees Trott), Martin Jacques (Co-founder of Demos, former editor of Marxism Today, the curiously anti-socialist journal) and Julia Middleton (Chief Executive of Common Purpose).
Geoff Mulgan now chairs the Advisory Council alongside Martin Taylor, who just happens to be a steering group member of the Bilderberg group (a notoriously secretive elite gathering). After his disastrous time at Barclays Bank, Taylor received a £2.5 million payoff (in addition his shares would be worth £3.2 million). A leading member of Labour's taskforce on welfare reform, he is one of the party's prominent supporters in the City. The millionaire immediately targeted the poorest people in the UK with a focus on 'welfare dependency'. Taylor argued that in order to reduce the growing number of workless households, both partners in an unemployed childless couple should have to make themselves available for work. People who get a thrill out of punishing the helpless need help themselves.
Ian Christie is still on the Advisory Council which also has: Matthew D'Ancona (Deputy Editor, The Sunday Telegraph), Terry Leahy (Chief Executive, Tesco plc), Mark Leonard (Director, Foreign Policy Centre), David Marquand (Principal, Mansfield College, Oxford), Anita Roddick (Body Shop plc) and the curiously named 'Perri 6' who is researching into us all being taken over by robots. He has also done extensive research into mind-altering drugs.
It is amazing just how far the Demos team have 'moved on' from their days 'upholding' Marxism to embrace the ideology of the right, any old post-modern cobblers, big business and the shadowy connianvances of think tanks. Demos has spawned all manner of parasitical children.
Take the example of Common Purpose (CP). This was started by Demos trustee Julia Middleton. It has been around for sometime but gained a great deal of funding with the advent of New Labour and its service towards business elites. Initially money was put in by David Bell, the Chairman of the Financial Times (and the Millennium Bridge Trust). CP is another strange organisation, a kind of secret society for careerists.
Again the board has some mysterious figures presiding including Lord Dahrendorf, the chairman of the right-wing Ditchley Foundation and Prof. Laurence Martin of the like-minded Royal Institute of International Affairs. It could well be a note paper job, but CP is composed of representatives of big business (mostly Labour party donors) including multi-nationals, the police, the MOD, banks and their associates, eyes down for a Full House:
Gillian Ashmore (Cabinet Office), Sir Jeremy Beecham (Association of Metropolitan Authorities), David Bell (Financial Times), Dr Andrew Bird (Zeneca), Dr Kevin Bond (Yorkshire Water), Jeremy Hall (Dean Clough Ltd), Richard Hatfield (Ministry of Defence), John Lee (Halifax plc), Ruth MacKenzie (ex-Scottish Opera), Vincent McGinlay (Marks & Spencer plc), Baroness Genista McIntosh (Royal National Theatre), Tim Melville-Ross (Institute of Directors), Sir Alastair Morton (Shadow Strategic Railway Authority and British Railways Board), Sir Herman Ouseley (Commission for Racial Equality), Janet Paraskeva (National Lottery Charities Board), Graham Prentice (Nestlé UK Ltd), John Rivers (Rolls-Royce plc), Gerry Robinson (Arts Council of England), Richard Sambrook (BBC), Barry Shaw (Cleveland Constabulary), Jan Shawe (Prudential Corporation plc), Vivien Stern (The International Centre for Prison Studies), Peter Stoddart (Nissan UK Ltd), Paul Whitehouse (Sussex Police), Ken Williams (Norfolk Constabulary), Ruth Wishart (Freelance Journalist).
Their list of corporate sponsors is impressive and they say they have offices in every UK city. Put politely CP tries to promote 'corporate community engagement', the synergy between big business and well... it's a bit like the asbestos factory owner's daughter handing out religious tracts to the workers coughing at the factory gates. Relationships between corporate CP funders such as BAe, Royal Ordinance and GEC Marconi and say the work of CP trustee David Grayson of the national Disability Council are ignored however. The idea is to accentuate the positive.
The real value of CP must be measured by its closeness to power - access to which is what is on offer. The board has only one member who is openly employed by government, Gillian Ashmore, her record speaks for itself:
"Gillian Ashmore is currently on secondment from the Department of Transport to the British Railways Board working on railway privatisation. She joined the Civil Service in 1971 and has worked variously in the Departments of the Environment, Transport, Employment and Trade and Industry. On the Transport side, she has worked mainly in the public transport field. In the latter two Departments she was Deputy Director of the Enterprise and Deregulation Unit. Mrs. Ashmore has also been a non-executive director of P & O European Transport."11
Incredibly with a line up like that the CP constitution has the cheek to say the organisation: "is diverse and non-aligned. It draws on the widest possible variety of sectors, areas, and social groups and recognises only peer level and geographical boundaries as common factors to each group. It is always independent, always balanced and owes no historical or other allegiance to any other organisation. Common Purpose works for the benefit of society as a whole..."12
What a pack of lies. CP creates the illusion that it is for ordinary people, but it is not only run by an elite, its projects cater exclusively for an elite: "the rising generation of decision makers" as they say in their web site. This also states that: "We are looking for applicants who are decision-makers in their city, towns or area", and that "participants are over 30 and already hold a position of considerable responsibility". They say their long-term aim is "educating the next generation of leaders in each city or town". On this basis it is a fraudulent organisation.
Funded by big business and public bodies (everyone from Arms companies, Banks to curiously the Scottish Arts Council - probably through Ruth Wishart's connection) they operate for their benefit while their constitution lies that they seek "the advancement of education for the public benefit... to educate men and women from a broad range of geographical, political, ethnic, institutional, social and economic backgrounds."

We have mourned and you have not wept
With Trustees such as Gerry Robinson, the ex-Coca Cola salesman who is now chairman of the Arts Council of England and Janet Paraskeva, the director of the National Lotteries Charities Board (the 'independent organisation' which distributes National Lottery money supposedly to charities and community groups')13 CP has specialised in channelling money away from genuine charitable causes. Demos is also partially funded directly via the Arts Council/Lottery 'New Opportunities Fund'.
The illusion of independence from funders and government was abandoned with CP's biggest project, 'Citizen's Connection'. Tony Blair's old flat mate Lord Falconer's New Millennium Experience Company (NMEC) said that: "Camelot, NMEC and Common Purpose created...Citizens Connection."14
But the legal position of the Camelot Group plc is that as the operator of the UK National Lottery it is supposed to be "not responsible for the allocation of funds raised". Except when it is.
The NMEC was (is?) an extraordinary concoction. According to their press release the 'NMEC is a non-Departmental Public Body and a company, independent from government with one shareholder, Lord Falconer'. This makes it an Anstalt a finacial vehicle more commonly associated with Swiss Bank accounts and money laundering. The 'off-shore account' was pioneered by the Mafia: their Lotteries ('the numbers racket') were deemed illegal because of the evidence that they preyed upon the poor - the National Lottery magically does the reverse.
NMEC is funded by the National Lottery via the Millennium Commission (who tried to be independent from government but were threatened with a judicial review). NMEC ran the Dome and a National Programme of events across the UK. It is misleading to gather all this up as the problem with 'the Dome'. For instance, Labour MP Robert Marshall-Andrews tabled a Commons question on numerous secret contracts worth some £450 million - awarded by the NMEC, 'a company with no direct lines of information or accountability'.
But with millions pouring down the drain (well into a few people's pockets) an attempted diamond heist and daily financial craziness at the Dome, no one really noticed anything unusual when Camelot, whoever runs Common Purpose and Lord Falconer gave £2 million to Common Purpose to run a web site which links to the governments' sites, which is all Citizen's Connection is.
Amusingly an exactly similar organisation to 'Citizen's Connection' already existed with Lord Young's School for Social Entrepreneurs, which is funded by HSBC, the National Lottery and a peculiar 'charity' the Esmee Fairbairn Charitable Trust, run by the wife of the former chairman of the SAC, Magnus Linklater.
People have to pay to join up for any CP programme, so who is this money going to? Just about all of CP projects are extensions of PR exercises run by big companies, such as the 'Your Turn' project, which was directly run by BT's PR consultants, so effectively these are being underwritten. Yet - even while CP got millions for their web site - 'Your Turn' was specifically given additional funding by the National Lottery Charities Board, which as we have seen with CP board member, Janet Paraskeva has a conflict of interest, which she regards as a common purpose and her turn for some money.

Manufactured, twisted...ever more tenuous
"We now live in a world in which fantasy and reality are hard if not impossible to distinguish. Information is the raw material of both fact and fantasy, and has been so industrialised that its origins are rarely visible. Now it can be manufactured, twisted, multiplied and disseminated almost without limit. Assisted by the power of computing, it can be created as if from nothing: tailor made to cognitive needs, put together as pastiche or copy. It needs only minimal reference points. The links between it and an objective reality - the claim of positivism and enlightenment - are ever more tenuous. As a result for the receiver there are few grounds for judgement, apart from received authority or limited experience."15
This con artist's confession was written by Geoff Mulgan a few years ago, when he was em...a lefty Sociology lecturer in Sheffield University. You can just smell the post-modernism: confusing fantasy with reality, providing text by the yard. There was only one place for the young Geoff to go: Think Tank Land - the Thought Police - the place where the government pay you to * with people's minds. From there Geoff's 'limited experience' (and how he limits others), and his strange fantasies became confused with reality, in first the Social Exclusion Unit, then enforcing these policies in the Performance & Innovation Unit. Mulgan's desk is where all this bureaucracy begins which we see filtering into arts policy (Ian Christie's work) and the administration of the poor.
The type of post-modernist theory expressed by entrepreneurial proponents of the Third Way such as Mulgan, has its roots in the work of Martin Jacques, the founder of Demos who recruited Mulgan. Jaques pushed the importance of interpreting ideology as no more than the job of gaining the consent of the dominant class. The relations of production, exploitation and the desire for power, impunity and privilege at the heart of the system were overlooked. The market (and its effects) as a structured system of relationships and values escaped their critique. This delineated only free relations of 'exchange' between individuals in the market as consumers.
The early 80s attack of the new conservatives and monetarists on social democratic capitalism together with the collapse of the soviet system gave the market and its values a new prominence for Jacques. Together with the sociologist Stuart Hall they produced political critiques - particularly in the journal 'New Times' - of the new right and are associated with coining the phrase 'Thatcherism'. Critics believe these overestimated its ideological and political coherence and its success in reforming the machinery of state and in capturing public opinion:
"Because Thatcherism had a 'project', it was concluded that the left needed one too. This, it was argued meant a long and difficult reform of the left on the 'hard road to renewal'. But the results of this in 'New Times' and 'post-fordism' involved the jettisoning of many of the critical analyses of left thought."16
So with the pseudo-sociology of the 'policy entrepreneur', with this wilful ignorance in exchange for money, we have a social thought which has moved far away from examining the actual conditions of the society in which we live:
"...at a time of widespread disenchantment or retreat on the intellectual left when theory itself had abandoned the ground of oppositional critique and assumed the role of a legitimising discourse with every motive for dissimulating its own material interests and conditions of emergence. In which case we would do better to drop all the glitzy self-promoting talk of 'post-modernism', 'New Times' etc., talk whose sole function - whether wittingly or not - is to offer an escape-route or convenient alibi for thinkers with a large (if unacknowledged) stake in the 'cultural logic of late capitalism.'"17
It is impossible now with Demos - employed by New Labour in much the same capacity as the Thatcher government employed the Adam Smith Institute and the IEA - to believe that they are unwitting. The connections and services to organisations such as the Bilderberg, Ditchley, Royal Institute for International Affairs etc. represents their connivance with elite gatherings of business interests unfettered by the democratic process. They are part of the laissez passer in the laissez faire.18

Its no go the Demos Man...
The SAC may still promote the mad logic that we will gain independence by abdicating it: but you will only hear this sort of thing from people who are paid to say it or who want to be: paid by government as part of the exercise of control, not public service. However you define Scottish culture it is dangerously destructive to see it as a process of enforcing a diseased mentality contracted from a Downing Street 'policy entrepreneur'.
This is ignored, but Scottish culture is self-determined here in Scotland and it will always seek freedom. Part of actually realising that freedom will be a redress of balance, an acknowledgement of the areas of culture which are ignored and suppressed, deemed 'too political,' because they challenge the assumptions of the power structure which presently has control of the financial resources. The present power structure maintains class hierarchies whereby selected members of the middle class once suitably 'educated' into appreciating and administering 'high culture', then become eradicators of certain forms of culture, denigrating the nascent and indigenous culture.
Everyone's had enough of it. It simply doesn't work. Many of those in our areas of higher education, mainstream media, those administrating culture and the majority of artists will have to make themselves aware about what really happened in Scottish culture in the last 20 years because there is no real record. The level of cultural debate is atrociously non-existent - the example the SAC set with Ian Christie is a disgrace, really quite repulsive. It puts us back to the position of intellectual openness of Czechoslovakia in the 1960s - instead of tanks rolling in it is think tanks. It makes no difference to me if I am considered a dissident for saying so.
Where are arts and cultural policy analysed intelligently? Why was Ian Christie paid to perpetuate this stage managed fraud by the two Stepford Wives of the SAC and Glasgow City Council?
Centralised devolution for all is now on offer across the country. A national network of Commisars. But the fact is that the Arts Council are losing the support of even their own committee members. Those with any integrity are blackmailed or put into corners, doubling up on their jobs, shortening their lives with the stress of competing in this phoney market place. The internal market becomes internalised market values - pretend partnerships where the mentor becomes the tormentor. There will never be a shortage of money for government stooges like Ian Christie and his like, those who advocate that we maintain in ignorance of the relevance of our own culture. I'd love to sell my soul myself, but they think I'm the Devil.

Common Purpose was set up in 1989 by a Julia Middleton. Julia Middleton is a trustee of the UK training and leadership charity Impetus and a former member of Demos. Julia Middleton was an independent assessor for the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments and also the head of staff for Deputy Prime Ministers Office headed by John Prescott. She is also a trustee of Alfanar and the Media Standards Trust and is also a member of the Shadow National Advisory Board of the UK National Centre for Diversity.

Wikipedia also provides us with a list of notable Trustees and Participants:

Jeremy Beecham, former Chairman, Labour National Executive Committee
Chris Bryant, Member of Parliament for Rhondda
Andrew Cubie, Chairman of Napier University court
Baron Gordon of Strathblane, Scottish businessman
Rt Revd John Inge, Bishop of Worcester
Sir Charles Pollard, former Chief Constable, Thames Valley Police
Baden Skitt, member, Criminal Cases Review Commission
To add to this former Norfolk County councilor Tim Byles seems to have some knowledge of Common Purpose as his council discussed using CP training courses as can be seen here:

How a controlling organisation, under the guise of a diversifying one can permeate a city's infrastructure
See capitalised entries at bottom of article
This only claims to be a partial list

COMMON PURPOSE ...

... BUT TO WHAT END ...?

.

It's likely that you've never heard of an organisation called Common Purpose, unless that is you are a 'leader' or aspire to be one. I'd never heard of it myself until this week, but from what I have read so far people urgently need to be aware of what it is doing.

It began in the UK in 1988, where it has some 45 offices, but has now taken its sun symbol logo into many countries as Common Purpose International. These include France, Germany, Ghana, Hungary, India, Ireland, Netherlands, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey. I understand it is also moving in on the United States. This is its stated goal:

'Common Purpose aims to improve the way society works by expanding the vision, decision making ability and influence of all kinds of leaders. The organisation runs a variety of educational programmes for leaders of all ages, backgrounds and sectors, in order to provide them with the inspiration, information and opportunities they need to change the world.'

From such bland descrïptions come two questions immediately: A common purpose to what end? And 'change the world' in what way exactly? We need answers here because Common Purpose is sweeping through the UK 'training' leaders in all areas of society and if they have a 'common purpose' we ought to know about it.

The organisation now has training programmes in every major town and city in Britain and since 1989 more than 60,000 people have been involved with 20,000 'leaders' completing one or more programmes. These are:

Leaders: Matrix and Focus
Emerging leaders: Navigator
Very young leaders: Your Turn
Leaders who need a local briefing: Profile
National leaders: 20:20
The benefits of Common Purpose training are the following, the sales-pitch tells us:

Participants gain new competencies and become more effective in a diverse and complex world.
Organisations benefit from stronger, more inspired, better-networked managers and senior managers who are closer to the community
Communities benefit from cross-sector understanding and initiatives as different parts of the community learn to operate more effectively together.
Maybe it's just me, but I keep seeing a picture of George Orwell in my mind. He is shaking his head and smiling. Those who complete the courses are called Common Purpose 'graduates' and throughout British society such 'graduates' are at work in government, law enforcement, health and many other areas that affect daily life. So what's it all about and what is going on here?

The official founder and Chief Executive of Common Purpose is Julia Middleton who in her profile at the Common Purpose UK Website (www.commonpurpose.org.uk) fails to mention a rather relevant fact: she is also Head of Personnel Selection in the office of John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister to Tony Blair. Prescott has been the man with responsibility for creating 'regional assemblies' around the United Kingdom which are part of the plan to abolish nations and bring their powerless 'regions' under the jackboot of the European Union. He has, of course, sought to sell this policy as 'devolving power to the people'.

Prescott has common purpose with Common Purpose and Julia Middleton because they are all committed to the same end. The European superstate is designed to be centrally controlled and managed at lower levels by bland and brain dead 'leaders' who are all programmed to think the same. This is where Common Purpose comes in.

You can always tell an Illuminati front by its desire to centralise everything and that includes the centralisation of thought as diversity is scorned, ridiculed and dismissed in favour of a manufactured 'consensus'; you will also see the Orwellian Newspeak technique in which the organisation claims to stand for what it is seeking to destroy - Common Purpose says its aim is to develop 'diverse' leaders; and Illuminati fronts always tend to use language that actually says nothing when describing what they do.

Political speech writers work for days to produce statements that say nothing because if politicians don't commit themselves to specifics they can hide the real agenda amid the bland and banal. Wilson Bryan Key writes in his book The Age of Manipulation about his experience of writing a speech with others for U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower:

'For thirty-six sleepless hours, three writers turned out draft after draft, reviewed by a White House deputy press secretary who offered terse comments like, 'Much too specific!' 'Ease up on factual references!' and 'Take it back and fuzz it up!' 'Fuzz it up,' we discovered eventually, meant avoid all clear, factual statements about anything more specific than the time of day ... The speech was endlessly discussed for likely audience reactions, belief and attitude reinforcements, and implied meanings ... Would anyone take the empty rhetoric seriously? The speech read smoothly, but said absolutely nothing about anything. This was precisely what it was intended to say. During audience interviews after the oration, most expressed satisfaction with the great man's words. 'Ike really gave it to them!' 'He has my vote!' 'I like the way he thinks!' 'Great speech!''.'

This is how Illuminati organisations operate and when you look at the propaganda for Common Purpose it is bland and without specifics, just as you would expect. So what does this organisation teach its 'leaders'? You wouldn't know by reading its blurb and with its courses costing thousands of pounds it would be expensive to find out. But for sure it will manufacture consensus among its 'diverse' clientele.

This is a key technique of the Illuminati throughout society - to manipulate agreement on a range of issues that then become the norm to be defended from all challenge and true diversity. It has been developed by organisations like the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations in London which was funded into existence in 1946 with a grant from the Rockfeller Foundation and is one of the Illuminati's global centres for developing the 'hive mind' mentality or 'group and organisational behaviour'. Tavistock works closely with 'public sector' (state-controlled) organisations including the UK government and the European Union and the Orwell-speak on its website could have come straight from the pages of Common Purpose. Or the other way round. Jargon is always the language of the junta:

'Multi-organisational working, cross-boundary working and the global-national-local interface each raise their own set of organisational dynamics which must be surfaced and worked with if collaboration is to be effective. They also raise particular challenges for leadership (and followership). The Institute's approaches to organisational consultancy and leadership development, based on organisational theory and systems psychodynamics are particularly appropriate for helping organisations to address these complex issues.'

Like working out what the hell all that is supposed to mean. What we can see is that Tavistock and Common Purpose share the same pod. Both want to develop 'leaders' and they do it in the same way by manufactured consensus that then stamps out all diversity by using those who have conceded their right to free thought to the group psyche. Mind manipulation techniques like Neuro-linguistic programming or NLP are also employed in the language employed to engineer consensus. NLP is a technique of using words to re-programme the body computer to accept another perception of reality - in this case the consensus agreed by the manipulators before their victims even register for the 'course'. Apparently the CIA refers to these pre-agreed 'opinions' as 'slides'. As one Internet writer said:

'A 'slide' is a prefabricated, 'politically correct' blanket 'pop' 'opinion', 'view' or 'take' upon a particular issue of general interest which is designed to preclude further consideration, analysis or investigation of the issue in question. In other words, it is a 'collectivised' mental position which is never to be questioned. This is precisely the 'product' of the Deputy Prime Minister's insidious neurological linguistic control programme 'Common Purpose'.'

Anyone who resists the programming is isolated and the group turned against them until they either conform or lose credibility to be a 'leader'. Look at global society in any country and you will see this happening in the workplace, among friends down the bar and in television discussions. The consensus on global warming has been manipulated to be that carbon emissions are the cause and anyone who says otherwise is an uncaring, selfish, racist and quite happy to see the planet and humanity face catastrophe. The fact that carbon emissions are not the cause of global warming is irrelevant because the 'truth' is what the consensus has agreed it to be. In short, if you don't agree with the extreme consensus you are an extremist.

It is the manipulation of consensus that has turned the three main political parties in Britain into one party with their leaders Tony Blair, David Cameron and 'Ming' Campbell all standing on the same ground. They might offer slightly different policies - and only slightly - but they are all agreed on the fundamentals and this makes elections irrelevant. The Conservative Party's David Cameron, the likely winner of the next General Election, is Blair Mark II and this pair certainly have common purpose.

The Tavistock Institute has been working this flanker for decades and Common Purpose seems to me to have the Curriculum Vitae of a Tavistock front. One of the Tavistock founders, Dr. John Rawlings Rees, who also became co-founder of the World Federation for Mental Health, talked of infiltrating all professions and areas of society - 'Public life, politics and industry should all ... be within our sphere of influence ... If we are to infiltrate the professional and social activities of other people I think we must imitate the Totalitarians and organize some kind of fifth column activity!' He said that the 'salesmen' of their perception re-programming (mass mind-control) must lose their identity and operate secretly. He said:

'We must aim to make it permeate every educational activity in our national life ... We have made a useful attack upon a number of professions. The two easiest of them naturally are the teaching profession and the Church: the two most difficult are law and medicine.'

The common purpose of the Tavistock/Illuminati guerrilla war on the human psyche is to wipe clean any sense of the individual and unique because only that way can they impose the global dictatorship and have the masses accept it. Brock Chisholm, former Director of the UN World Health Organisation, was right when he said: 'To achieve One-World Government, it is necessary to remove from the minds of men their individualism'.

Enter Common Purpose and its training of 'leaders'. If you can get the leaders to think the same it makes it much easier to transfer that to the general population. Julia Middleton's organisation, and whoever and whatever else is really behind it, has been making dramatic inroads into British society while it has flown below the radar. It is time we gave it a much higher profile as it goes ever-more international.

Brian Gerrish at http://www.eutruth.org.uk discovered Common Purpose when he was involved with a group in Plymouth in the west of England helping people find jobs and one of their projects was repairing wooden boats. He said they had lots of public support and backing from the local authorities and everything was going fine. But then it suddenly changed and the council support was withdrawn. When they tried to continue alone, he said that within a short time key people were being threatened:

'When we started to explore why we were being threatened we were absolutely staggered to find a very strange organisation called Common Purpose operating in the city. And we were absolutely amazed that there were so many people involved but they were not declaring themselves ...

'[Common Purpose] was operating throughout the structure of the city, in the city council, in the government offices, in the police, in the judiciary. Essentially we discovered what is effectively, at best, a quasi secret society which doesn't declare itself to ordinary people.'

Further research has led Gerrish to establish that Common Purpose is recruiting and training leaders to be loyal to the objectives of the organisation and the European Union and preparing the governing structure for what it calls the 'post-democratic society' after nations are replaced by regions in the European Union. 'They are learning to rule without regard to democracy, and will bring the EU police state home to every one of us', Gerrish says. Common Purpose 'graduates' are increasingly everywhere, as you will see from the partial list at the end of this article.

When the organisation was given an award in 2005 by one of it clients, Newcastle University in the North East of England, it was revealed that among its graduates in that area were: Michael Craik, Northumbria Police Chief Constable; Andrew Dixon, Executive Director of the Arts Council England, North East; Glyn Evans, City Centre Chaplain; Chris Francis, Centre Manager of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust; Anne Marshall, Chief Officer of Age Concern; Anthony Sargent, General Director of The Sage Gateshead; Miriam Harte, Director of Beamish Museum; and Sue Underwood, Chief Executive of NEMLAC (the North East Museums, Libraries and Archives Council). Brian Gerrish has found them to be throughout the government structure with more than £100 million of taxpayers money spent on Common Purpose courses for state employees. It has members in the National Health Service, BBC, police, legal profession, religion, local councils, the Civil Service, government ministries,! Parliament and Regional Development Agencies.

Common Purpose graduate Cressida Dick issued the 'shoot-to-kill' order to police officers that led to an innocent Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes being held down by police and shot eight times at point blank range, seven of them in the head. Cressida Dick has since been outrageously promoted from commander to deputy assistant commissioner in the Metropolitan police. Janet Paraskeva, the Law Society's Chief Executive Officer, is also a Common Purpose graduate and there are many and increasing numbers in the law and enforcement professions.

Common Purpose meetings are held under the 'Chatham House rule' in which participants are free to use the information received but not to reveal the identity or affiliation of the source, nor anyone else participating. Chatham House is the headquarters of the Illuminati's Royal Institute of International Affairs, which is part of the web that includes the Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission in the United States. It introduced the 'Chatham House rule' to keep its meetings secret while still having its policy promoted on a non-attributable basis.

From the efforts of the Tavistock Institute and Julia Middleton has come a common network with a common purpose that is leading to the rapid and coordinated introduction of Newspeak, political correctness and 'management initiatives' that lead us ever further down the road to tyranny.

I found your website while reading Henry Makow, whose articles, amongst those of other similar sites, I have found more than helpful over the last two years.

Thanks for your hard work and courage and the invaluable information you give out.

I watched the Common Purpose talk this morning - (I’d not heard of the organisation before) I live in Nuremberg, Germany - I’m an Englishwoman, married to a German, and was interested to discover that CP is at present also in 5 main German cities, notably banking, trade and EU administration, and now with a foothold in previous East Germany, (Leipzig). Nuremberg is as yet not involved, although with its history, it shouldn’t surprise me if it becomes so soon. The Dalai Lama was here last weekend with a lot of psychobabble about world peace and human rights.

I was interested to discover that another global organisation calling itself Impact International also has links with Julia Middleton - (link HERE). Seems like there are a whole host of such organisations which hardly anyone has heard of and are quietly working away behind the scenes.

It seems to me that various systems and ideologies are being deliberately set against each other in an attempt, successful so far, to deceive and distract ordinary people and to entrap them in the control of the hidden elite.

We dislike the EU as well and can see through the machinations of Merkel and Co. Many here have been indoctrinated by the same politically correct humanistic twaddle which is prevalent in the UK.

Over the last 7 years, there has been a movement called ‘Together for Europe’ which is a move to include all the Churches in Europe, a huge ecumenical conglomeration - a global spirituality, if you will. It’s all part of the same push. It has taken place in Stuttgart - where Common Purpose also has a base - but there’s no convention planned for this year, as far as I’m aware. There’s also the same twaddle about diversity there as well - see HERE.

Communist? I don't think that's the correct term to describe them - sorry that this somewhat naive website comes fro such a right-wing perspective when that is entirely inappropriate as CP is attacking bioth left and right. Tony

On the surface, Common Purpose is an educational charity which does leadership and networking development training.

In reality, Common Purpose is a corrupt, subversive and sinister organisation which seeks to destroy the national identity of Britain, to destroy democracy in Britain and introduce the EU Police State into Britain.

Most people have never heard of Common Purpose which is strange because Common Purpose has corruptly abused millions of pounds of taxpayers' money.

Common Purpose or, more properly, Communist Purpose, is a secretive, New Labour and Brussels funded, Marxist-led, EU 'Trojan Horse' fifth column operation and part of the mechanism being used by Brussels to undermine and soften up British society to pave the way for the take-over of Britain by the European Union Collective of Communist Purpose (EUCCP), also known as the EU Police State.

One way that Common Purpose are doing this is by infiltrating their "graduates" into positions of power in the media, national and local government, the police and the judiciary.

CP needs these "graduates" to run the bureaucracy of the New Dictatorship of what they call the "post-democratic" society.

All Common Purpose "graduates" have been corrupted and are totally untrustworthy.

Common Purpose, the game is up.

If you can spare two hours, watch this video by Brian Gerrish. It is riveting.

When the general public in Britain finds out about the corrupt activities of New Labour and Brussels sponsored Common Purpose, they will be outraged.

It makes me sick that while service men and women are risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan, thousands of Common Purpose "graduates", many of them in the police and other government departments, are actively working to destabilise Britain.

I cannot express in words how appalled I am at the actions of Common Purpose and the New Labour government. Common Purpose has also infected the Conservatives and the Lib Dems. They cannot be trusted either.

---------------------------------

Although Julia Middleton says she started Common Purpose, it wasn't her idea. The idea originally came from the Tavistock Institute. It is certain that Brussels also pulls some of the Common Purpose strings.

I have been trying to think of an historical situation where a government has willingly assisted a foreign power to infiltrate, subvert and sabotage that government's own country and government. The nearest historical parallel that I have come up with is the Anschluss in Austria in 1938 when Austrian Nazis in the Austrian government helped the German Nazis take over Austria.

But that took place over a much shorter time frame.

Common Purpose has been working with British governments to soften up Britain for takeover by the EU for at least the last eleven years.

This is what makes Common Purpose so unique. Most people will find it difficult to comprehend that any government could stoop so low as to betray its own citizens.

British governments are elected to govern - not to rule, dictate to and betray their own citizens.

QUOTES

Email from M.C., of Kent on Sunday 20th April 2008:
"However, the majority [of the reports on my website of corrupt and dishonest practises in government] are from those who are (or have been) victims of local and national authorities but I had never been able to find the common ground that is destroying our country and society ... until I received your email. I have spent most of the day reading some extremely alarming reports on your website and others and it all becomes very clear."

"If you will not fight for the right when you can easily win without bloodshed, if you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not so costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no chance of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves." Winston S Churchill

That glorious history of imperial genocide, racism, slavery, class oppression and royalty eh?

stopcp.com wrote:

Marxist-led, EU 'Trojan Horse' fifth column operation and part of the mechanism being used by Brussels to undermine and soften up British society to pave the way for the take-over of Britain by the European Union Collective of Communist Purpose (EUCCP), also known as the EU Police State.

NO EU - Common Purpose New World Order Fifth Column Brian Gerrish 7-08. (Low Res) Brian Gerrish presents in Bournemouth . . . (Disclaimer: Views and opinions presented here are for informational and educational purposes only and may not necessarily be those of the makers of this video) Albert Burgess - Our Constitutional Rights Cannot Be Given Away Ever! Helenor Bye Life Ended by Medical Negligence

A Common Purpose?
Common Purpose (CP) is a Charity, based in Great Britain, which creates ‘Future Leaders’ of society. CP selects individuals and ‘trains’ them to learn how society works, who 'pulls the levers of power' and how CP ‘graduates’ can use this knowledge to lead 'Outside Authority’. Children, teenagers and adults have their prejudices removed. Graduates are ‘empowered’ to become ‘Leaders’ and work in ‘partnership’ with other CP graduates. CP claims to have trained some 30,000 adult graduates in UK and changed the lives of some 80,000 people, including schoolchildren and young people.
But evidence shows that Common Purpose is rather more than a Charity ‘empowering' people and communities’. In fact, CP is an elitest pro-EU political organisation helping to replace democracy in UK, and worldwide, with CP chosen ‘elite’ leaders. In truth, their hidden networks and political objectives are undermining and destroying our democratic society and are threatening ‘free will’ in adults, teenagers and children. Their work is funded by public money and big business, including international banks

Here's a rather bizarre story, involving a property deal, local government and a charity and a college. It was one of the first things I thought of when I first came across Brian Gerrish's lecture on Common Purpose.

Could Common Purpose have been involved in this? What other networks could have been involved?

A Common Purpose?
Common Purpose (CP) is a Charity, based in Great Britain, which creates ‘Future Leaders’ of society. CP selects individuals and ‘trains’ them to learn how society works, who 'pulls the levers of power' and how CP ‘graduates’ can use this knowledge to lead 'Outside Authority’. Children, teenagers and adults have their prejudices removed. Graduates are ‘empowered’ to become ‘Leaders’ and work in ‘partnership’ with other CP graduates. CP claims to have trained some 30,000 adult graduates in UK and changed the lives of some 80,000 people, including schoolchildren and young people.
But evidence shows that Common Purpose is rather more than a Charity ‘empowering' people and communities’. In fact, CP is an elitest pro-EU political organisation helping to replace democracy in UK, and worldwide, with CP chosen ‘elite’ leaders. In truth, their hidden networks and political objectives are undermining and destroying our democratic society and are threatening ‘free will’ in adults, teenagers and children. Their work is funded by public money and big business, including international banks

Is this parasitc squirt of a creature Common Purpose I wonder?
Surely she is being psycologically prepared for the coming catastrophe and all the bad karma that's going to pile on her head. As it may do to many others who have blood on their hands. When people hate her for being responsible for human carnage she can fall back on her scientological programming.

Strengthening community links in West Yorkshire - 29 January 2008
Increased involvement in networks helps people to value the diversity within their communities and see the world through others’ eyes, according to a report released by Common Purpose and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Local Links, a new approach to community development was piloted in four locations across West Yorkshire.

Are there cases where the vaccination of children against the wishes of their parents could be justified?
Would measures such as forced quarantine, which helped to control the outbreak of SARS in Asia, be acceptable in countries such as the UK?
What are the roles and obligations of parents, schools, school-food providers and the government in tackling childhood obesity?
Should people who smoke or drink excessively be entitled to fewer resources from the public healthcare system, or should they be asked for increased contributions?
Fortification of foodstuffs such as flour and margarine have been accepted for some time. Why does the fluoridation of water meet with such resistance?

The Consumer Champions
Under the consumer focus initiative, public services have appointed consumer champions.
Consumer champions:
are senior members of the management team with the authority to drive through change; have responsibility for ensuring the consumers' views are translated into practical improvements to public services; and ensure that the changes made to public services have real meaning and impact and that they are part of a long term strategy of improvement.

She was a Charity Commissioner from 1998 to April 2003. She served on the Board of the Housing Corporation for over ten years, and was the Chair of the Investment Committee there. She is a member of the Committee of Reference for Friends Provident and a Board member of the National Consumer Council. She is also an independent Board member of the Department of Trade and Industry, and a member of the Audit Committee there. In a freelance capacity she has been an adviser to wide range of grant making trusts and to companies and has researched and published on the funding of the voluntary sector. She was a consultant to HM Treasury on the development of a number of recent funds targeted at the voluntary sector. Julia Unwin is the Deputy Chair of the Food Standards Agency. The views expressed in this book are the author's own and do not necessarily express those of Abbey Charitable Trust, the Baring Foundation, Bridge House Trust, Lloyds TSB Foundation or the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

a new report from Julia Unwin, policy adviser to the Baring Foundation. It is based on her experience over ten years in advising trusts and foundations. It challenges grantmakers to think more clearly about how and why they fund and offers some simple frameworks to aid this; such as ‘giving’, ‘shopping’ and ‘investing’.

Julia Unwin, Director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, has been appointed to the Council on Social Action. The Council, set up by Gordon Brown, met for the first time on Tuesday (11 December). It will generate and advise on ideas and initiatives to advance and communicate the Government’s social change agenda.

Julia Unwin joined the Joseph Rowntree Foundation as Director on 1 January 2007. She was previously Deputy Chair of the Food Standards Agency and worked as an independent consultant operating within government and the voluntary and corporate sectors. In that role, she focused on the development of services and in particular the governance and funding of voluntary organisations. She also served as a member of the Housing Corporation Board for 10 years and a Charity Commissioner from 1998 until 2003. Among other voluntary roles, she was chair of the Trustees of the Refugee Council from 1995 until 1998. Julia has long experience as an advocate for the users of housing, health and social care services and recently chaired the King’s Fund Inquiry into the operation of the care market for older people.

Nationwide consultation suggests that individuals will help pay for a fairer, clearer long-term care system........

Julia Unwin, Director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said:

‘This initiative has produced important new evidence on what kind of funding system will gain the confidence of those most closely involved with long-term care. It shows that people yearn for greater clarity about their entitlements: whichever system we have should do what it says on the tin. At present many older people and carers feel unsupported by a system that too often seems to be working against them, rather than giving them essential support at a time of their life when they are at their most vulnerable.’

Futurebuilders and Venturesome publish report on access to capital for social enterprise ‘An Intermediary for the Social Investment Market?’ recommends social investment organisations work together to build opportunities for social enterprises to access capital finance. Julia Unwin wrote the report on behalf of the Social Investment Market Group for Futurebuilders and Venturesome. Visit www.futurebuilders-england.org.uk.

Stewardship appoints new Chair for their Committee of Reference
Julia Unwin has been appointed new chair of the Stewardship Committee of Reference, the independent body that overseas the ethical policies of the range of funds. Julia had been a committee member for 4 years and was appointed chair in June. She will also oversee the Investment Sub-Committee. Roger Morton, the committee’s previous chair has retired.

In search of evils
Identifying social ills is essential to combat them, the new chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation tells Alison Benjamin - and explains why the organisation must wield much greater influence

Is there a connection between Nuffield and Common Purpose? On seeing Caz's links on Nuffield (above) I did some googling and quickly found something I'd produced in 2002. I'd forgotten about the Nuffield Inquiry into language learning in schools, which led to the National Strategy for Languages in England.

It was looking at the time as if the Government was really tackling the issue with its National Strategy for Languages in England. There would be a renewal in language learning, and there would be more opportunity for languages other than French to be taught. In fact, just the opposite happened. It led to a catastrophic decline.

Could this be the Government messing up, or Nuffield messing up, or someone like Common Purpose messing up?

The Trustees of the Baring Foundation have been fortunate to have Julia Unwin as an adviser for almost twelve years, initially on our programme of grants to voluntary organisations in Greater London and since 1996 on our voluntary sector grants policy more generally.

Barings Bank was 'bought' out by ING when it 'crashed' in 1995. The bank account Nick Leeson 'siphoned' money into was '88888'.
(Interesting, the Chinese olympics started, apparently, at 8:08 on the 8th of the 8th of 2008.)

Julia Unwin, CEO Rowntree FOundation, which writes reports in collaboration with Common Purpose:

Speaking Truth to Power - 2004 by Julia Unwin.
This paper looks back to the experience of the third sector in the first term of the Labour Government. It draws attention to measures that would enhance the relationship between the sector and Government, arguing that both would suffer if the voice of the voluntary sector was confined.

Health Action Zones (2000) by Julia Unwin and Peter Westland.
This study considers the ways in which the voluntary and community sectors have become involved in the Department of Health's Health Action Zones by presenting three case studies which highlight the challenges of forging meaningful partnerships between the voluntary and statutory sectors.

Speaking Truth to Power (2000) by Julia Unwin. The voluntary sector's relationship with Government.
This is a discussion paper about the changing relationship between government and the voluntary and community sector. It draws on the experience of, mainly, national organisations working in England to address a range of issues including the opportunities and challenges offered by engagement with a government which aims to be more consultative at both central and local levels.

Ambassador benefits
Teach First Ambassadors are provided with a range of benefits upon attaining ambassador status, most notably:
• Fast-track entry onto the Tanaka Business School’s MBA and MSc in Management/Finance
• Full use of the Imperial College library
• £1,000 reduction on the Navigator Course (on leadership) offered by Common Purpose
• Waived application fees to the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard and the Chicago Graduate Business School, among others
• Free access to Vault.com, the world’s leading source of career information
• Guaranteed first round interviews with some of Teach First’s business supporters, including HSBC Private Bank
• General discounts on theatre tickets, gym memberships, educational resources and more

The blogosphere carries a lot of (always) disapproving allusions to an organisation called 'Common Purpose'.

It seems to be simply gigantic. 'Forty-five offices across the UK. Since 1989, more than 60,000 people have been involved in Common Purpose and over 17,000 leaders have completed one or more programmes.' That's from the website of the Said Business School (Oxford University) who seem to be right behind it..

But I am mystified. As well as being a member of various international business committees, I have been managing director of a company, a member of the Chamber of Commerce and of a major national business federation, a regular client of Business Link and a member of a real heavyweight training organisation for industrial leadership called The Industrial Society, which became The Work Foundation... Will Hutton's beat. I have worked in and with both academia and multinational commercial companies in the UK and around the world. With all those connections, and if they have been around for almost twenty years, how have I never, ever come across Common Purpose?

Well, I have an open mind, and it might well be my vast ignorance (no-one can be everywhere and know everything) so I went looking for them.

Having found their website I am no wiser. Its thousands of words tell me more or less nothing. It's wall to wall motherhood and citizenship-favoured apple-pie, written in MBA-speak. (As a friend put it the other day, MBA = Master of b* All. But let's move on.)

It looks like some sort of open university for 'leadership' though wtf they mean by that I have not yet worked out. The names of their courses are distinctly odd. Most normal leadership course blurb says straightforward things like 'the course lasts three days' but CP courses 'require a commitment of three days'.

Here's a description of one of the -- extremely expensive -- CP courses:

Participants will:
-- understand how their city works - the role of different sectors, the levers of power, the drivers of future change
-- build a network of relationships with senior leaders and key figures locally
-- practice leading in different contexts
-- become more adept at spotting opportunities and threats
-- build their capacity to lead change.

Then there is this:

In every democracy, there is an invisible, open space. It lies between the citizen and the state. [...] Our aim is to fill this space with as many people as possible. [...] The Chatham House Rule, which is used throughout the world to aid free discussion, is respected on all programmes.

This is the Chatham House Rule, by the way

"When a meeting, or part thereof, is held under the Chatham House Rule, participants are free to use the information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker(s), nor that of any other participant, may be revealed."

No wonder I am having a problem with opacity.

There is an air of determination and, yes, well, mysterious purpose, about CP. It makes me uncomfortable especially since I have no clue what they are actually offering. It reminds me of Bagwash, or the Moonies. Scientology. Whoa! It's not them, is it? Maybe it's just me but there is also a kind of Nazi whiff about it:

Common Purpose programmes help people to lead beyond their authority and produce change beyond their direct circle of control.

Hm. This page actually scares me in its vagueness coupled with steely determination.

I have established that their founder and UK boss is ex-Prescott's office, Labour Party, etc. Vodafone and the FT are on board. Their 'sponsors' (see below... way below) seem to be a motley bunch, including prisons (huh?), local branches of big firms (very big firms) but not their HQs for the most part, and local authorities. Some of the interviewees CP presents on its website are real live top bananas, like Lord Simon, ex-BP boss. Hm - impressive. Then there is someone calling himself the Rector of London University of the Arts. Oh, that's a lot of art colleges bolted together. Well, OK, then.

Some of the blogs on my blogroll view CP as an arm of the EU, and say it's putting its goons in positions of influence right up to the Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet, against the day Britain is abolished. OK... Some blogs which are very definitely not on my blogroll are conspiracy lunatics who say CP is run by the Illuminati (oh, please) or the Masons (oh, for... ) I simply cannot bear conspiracy theorists. They make me run a mile.

But back to my first question - how have I missed CP?

The answer, according to some websites whose correspondents I would recommend locking up for their own safety, is that there is a - you guessed - a massive conspiracy to keep CP in low profile, and to keep it right out of MSM if possible. There is not one UK national newspaper mentioned in the press list on the CP website. And yet the FT backs them. And why have I never seen an article about Common Purpose in any of my newspapers?

Scoop? Hardly, but here's an interesting list of BBC Common Purpose graduates which was sent to me anonymously. It shows, if genuine, that Common Purpose has been targeting the BBC quite specifically, as I'm sure most organisations won't have such a high proportion of Common Purpose graduates.
http://aftermathnews.wordpress.com/2007/11/20/common-purpose-internati onal-manufacturing-orwellian-consent/
Most of these people will probably be entirely unaware of the criticism the likes of Brian Gerrish have been levelling at the charity. See if you recognise on-air staff from your BBC region, most people from BBC Bristol appear to be off-screen and off-mic staff.

As a new person here, is there a list of these people set down anywhere or is accessible?

Especially in the North East of England?

I watched Brian Gerish and one of the first names he mentioned was Barry keel in Plymouth who used to be CEO of Darlington which is heading down the 'swannee' and no-one has been able to understand why?

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